Print version ISSN 0188-4557

Abstract

With the opening of the Chilean economy to international trade in the late 1970s, the country began a series of structural changes. These changes had effects not only on the economy, but they were also reflected on the socio-territorial structures, both in urban and rural areas. In rural areas, the changes provoked a territorial specialization, changes in demographic processes and new urban-rural relations, among other aspects. Because of these emerging processes, the interest for analyzing the effects of modernization in the region of Araucania, Chile, arises. In doing this, information from the census of population and housing, census and agriculture between 1975 and 2007 were used. The results suggest that modernization has generated, among other effects, a productive transformation, mainly associated to forest plantations, intense migration from the rural sector and a change in the structure of the economically active population.